Last Chance
by TheWanderingMiko
Summary: Whatever happened to Sector 7? When Nigel gets a call from a friend that he'd otherwise lost track of, he can't help but find it odd. What does she want? Her plea is simple and the sincerity of it almost hurts Nigel to hear. 'Save me'
1. Prologue

Life is a sequence of constant meeting and leaving people. With friends, even close friends you meet them, are friends for a while, maybe months, maybe years and eventually something happens in your life and you and that person are forced to go your separate ways. Sure you promise to write, and even call a few times but eventually you fall out of touch and it's too much work to go about finding that person again and you put it off and put it off until you forget about that person all together.

This is a fact of life, not one person can hold onto everyone that they meet and become close to, they have to give them up at some point, that's just how it goes. But what happens when this person that you forgot, suddenly appears in your life again.

Will it be just like it was before?

If Nigel Uno had cared to look at his answering machine, he would have noticed that it was blinking at him, signaling that there was a new message. This new message was from a public numbered payphone who's camera had been broken long ago and now served no purpose save for acting as fodder for the paranoid passerby whom wasn't from the area and didn't know that it was broken. But Nigel didn't care to look, in fact he wasn't even at home to look.

Nigel was never home, the few friends that he had often told him that he might as well have sold the apartment as he was there maybe once a year. His response to this was always the same, if he sold it, then he was out of a place to sleep for that one day a year.

The blinking bulb on the message machine cast its light over the room, giving its immediate surroundings an eerie reddish hue. She clicked delete as she walked past it and moved to sit on the couch, her long dark hair once past her hips now to the middle of her back and tied up in a messy formal up do. Her dress was evergreen, its high slit making for easy movement. Normally she would have worn this form of outfit only if she'd been ordered to get close to someone in order to kill them. Tonight she'd dressed up for a different purpose but as it seemed it was a wasted effort, he wasn't home.

Whether or not he was coming home tonight was an irrelevant fact because she couldn't be here too long otherwise he might be targeted and that was something she didn't want to see happen. So she scribbled on a piece of paper, leaving the number to the prepaid cell phone that she'd purchased earlier that week, telling him that she will call before midnight tomorrow and signing it with the name that few called her by but he would recognize.

Kuki.


	2. Messy

When Nigel finally did make it through the door, stumbling like a drunk man because of the sever jet-lag a 30-hour straight flight had left him with, he was hardly in the mood for beeping answering machines and scribbled notes. He didn't even notice the fray-edged paper, torn from the security of a spiral-bound notebook, left on the coffee table in front of the couch. He simply tripped past it to shove open the door to his bedroom and collapse on the bed that still smelled of detergent-clean sheets thanks to their lack of use. He wasn't about to complain, even if his house-keeper had changed the detergent to some flowery-scented scheiße. Instead, he just buried his face into the lavender-smelling pillow and let it carry him right off to sleep where he was happy to stay for a good, long while.

He was awakened by the sound of an alarm-clock he never set spewing its alarm angrily at him. Sadly, when he moved to smack it, he realized that someone had moved it up onto the headboard of his bed, out of his reach. This puzzled him and he had to pause for a minute for the whole conception to sink into his mind before he lifted his head and glared over the sleep-skewed sunglasses that sat on his nose. The digital clock glared down at him with its blinking, red numbers and half of him wondered if he could effectively go back to sleep with it buzzing like that. He knew, though, that he couldn't and sighed almost angrily as he crammed his face back into his pillow before heaving himself up to reach for it. Here he noticed a note, folded in a strangely reminiscent way, on his bed-side table. It read: 'Nigel ' when folded and he could only stare at it.

He knew that loopy handwriting.

Without even thinking about it, he picked it up and was unfolding it quickly. Nostalgia fueled his hands as they teased and tugged and flattened the paper out enough to read it over. It didn't even take reading the first line and Nigel could hear Kuki's voice in the back of his mind reciting the words to him in the way that he knew she would.

Once he had taken away the number, he couldn't dial it fast enough, and his mouth grew dry when he heard her on the phone. Her voice was still high-pitched, though it might have been frighteningly straight-forward and sobering when she spoke to him.

"I need your help, Numbuh 1." No one, let alone Kuki, had called him by that name in years and for a moment it took him aback to hear it again. It gave him something of a homesick feeling for the old days and he had to quickly shove it away, lest he actually be moved to tears.

"What is it Kuki?"

It took all of an hour for Kuki to lay out the situation. It was a mess; a huge, ruddy, disfigured mess that could not have been explained in any shorter amount of time as the Asian woman held the phone in a shaking hand. In truth it sounded like something out of a movie, glamorous at first as she'd described it; traveling the world, seducing and killing, stopping plots that weren't so much evil as they were to the disinterest of those that hired her.

She was good at her job and in the end this had made her enemies, those that had hired her to take out a leading man in the underground pharmaceutical ring had decided in the end that she was too dangerous to have as a loose cannon and now were hunting her. She was a top priority to them, she was a threat and as she finished explaining, her voice cracked and she slowly started to break down. For as strong of a woman as she was, she was scared right now and she could only think of one man to turn to. The person that she'd always turned to with her problems; even after he'd left the KND he'd still been something of a life line for her.

"I didn't know who else to turn to" she said softly, going through the motions of deconstructing and reconstructing her gun as she tried to calm down. She no longer felt as though she were going to cry in fear when she'd finished. "Don't tell Wally" she said, standing and heading to the window, leaning to look out at the skyline of the city lit up by street lights, "the last thing he needs is to hear this…"

"The last thing he needs…?" it was all Nigel could stand to say as he tried very, very hard to digest everything that the Asian girl had told him. It was a difficult situation to both believe and understand, though he knew that if it was Kuki that it was all true. Rubbing his face, he sighed into his hands before raising his eyes to her face on the monitor of the video-call. Her gaze was oddly sobering and he found himself speaking firmly. "Kuki, what the hell happened?"

It was all he could think of to say. When he had seen her last, she had still been the happy-go-lucky, Asian-American girl that he had grown up with. They had joined the Kids Next Door together. They had gone through elementary, middle, and high school together. He'd tutored her through college and advised her when she had applied for the Secret Service. He had always been her consult and now… he almost regretted it because he wasn't any more sure as to what should be done than she was.

The sound of a door opening on the other end of the line was heard and in an instant the video call was switched to an audio one and Kuki's voice was rushed.

"I gotta go, I will meet you tomorrow at noon at the National Trust Airport." The phone clicked it's disconnection and the woman on the other end was gone.

Kuki hung up the phone and tucked it into it's holder at her hip as she turned and glanced at the blonde haired woman that had come in. She could remember when they'd first started working together after they'd both outgrown KND, they'd never been particularly friends, but their familiarity had in itself its own advantages.

"Who was that?" Rachel asked, feigning curiosity that Kuki knew better than to believe.

"No one of any interest", she said lightly, "you'd think that if you work on an underground circuit the telemarketers would fail to get your phone number." The former Numbuh 362 shrugged her shoulders before wrapping the red tool scarf that matched the slinky red dress she was wearing around her shoulders.

"Well, I have scouting work to do, how do I look?" Kuki vaguely toyed with the idea of telling her just how much of a whore she looked to be, but decided she didn't need to anger the young woman and thus turned back to look out the window.

"You look nice" Rachel said nothing, evidently not believing her but saying nothing about it before pacing to the front door of the apartment that was something of their temporary lodgings for the past few days.

"Don't wait up", the blonde said before she left, the smugness apparent in her voice; obviously she liked the fact that she'd gotten called out to work instead of Kuki being called. The asian woman couldn't have cared less really, she wanted out for a reason.

Once she was gone, the Asian woman headed out onto the balcony, reared back and let the prepaid cellphone fly from her hand into the city below.

The airport was crowded, that was probably why Nigel took great pains to avoid it whenever it was a possibility; it was a large building, streaming with people, which-in hindsight-was probably the reason that she'd picked it for a meeting spot. You could lose yourself in the crowd easily if you needed to. Checking his watch, he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and checked that (confirming that both were correct by the clock on the wall a ways to his left) before glancing around and wondering if something had gone wrong.

_Where was Kuki?_

As it turned out nothing was wrong, when he turned to look back at the clock, she was standing under it, her jeans and shirt looking more relaxed than she'd sounded on the phone. Her hair was up in a ball cap, maybe she thought it made her seem less conspicuous. She'd cut her hair at some point in the ten years since he'd seen her showing that it really had been a very long time; perhaps too long to really be called friends anymore.

Apparently they could because as soon as she saw him she raced for him, throwing her arms around his neck and enveloping him in a hug that caught more than one eye in the terminal. Picking her up off the floor, he spun her around and hugged her close. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been boarding a train, disappearing into the teeming masses around her after she'd walked out on Wally.

They'd been engaged, Wally had asked her on her birthday and she'd accepted; he'd never seen either of them so happy, so it had been a shock when he'd gotten the call from her half an hour before Wally had shown up at his door to tell him what she'd told him over the phone. They'd broken up.

Kuki had said that it was because she didn't want to hurt him, that he wouldn't be happy with her (Nigel had always suspected that there was another reason but he'd not had time to press the issue) and thus she'd left; vanishing from their lives in an instant and leaving Wally more or less crushed. The others had been mad at her, but he'd known better, he'd heard the hurt in her voice, the tears on her face when she'd told him to tell Wally that she loved him and that she was sorry. She'd meant it with every fiber of her being.

The one thing that Nigel liked best about being a spy was going under cover and, as luck would have it, It had made him very much of an actor in recent years. So, when Kuki asked him to act like they were some kind of lovers, he really had no trouble with it. He was used to pretending with people; why would it be hard with Kuki?

Arm in arm, they walked toward a sushi bar, pretending to prattle at one another about their "months apart" and how much they'd "missed" one another. It wasn't all too far from the truth, but it was still all a lie. In tune with the staging, though, he pulled out her chair and seated after her. She ordered first and after their menus had been handed back and they had gotten their lunch, his dark eyes turned on her at last with sincerity in them.

"This goes back a long time, doesn't it?" he asked firmly, his eyes catching hers and locking with them in an attempt to force the truth out of her. They had been working in similar fields, though, it seemed and Kuki chuckled, lowering her gaze to her plate.

"Don't do that, Nigel, it doesn't work on me." Here the cue ball shrugged and leaned back in his seat. Cocking his head at her, he waited for something to be said.

Taking her water glass in her hand she took a slow sip and then proceeded to run her fingertip around the rim as though she were thinking of something, staring idly at his side of the table and it's dressings. She'd been nervous about their meeting, even now she was worried that something would go wrong, maybe Rachel would show up and demand to know what she was doing, though it would have been uncharacteristic.

"Nigel, do you remember when I called you back when I had just joined the secret service to tell you that I couldn't marry Wally?" Nigel nodded, of course he remembered, Wally still brought it up once in a while when he was particularly drunk. "I was leaving because of this...I had been offered a job as a private assassin. It was supposed to be just a one time thing but-..." she glanced at him, "obviously it wasn't."

Reaching across the table, her hand took his, and she held onto it tightly, her own thin hand producing white marks on his skin.

"I called you because-...well, because I want out, someone is-", she stopped suddenly and her eyes widened. "How did he find me so fast?", Nigel turned to see the much too familiar face of Chad Dickson, heading towards them. Getting up, Kuki grabbed Nigel's hand and all but dragged him away. When Chad continued to follow them, she broke into a run, still dragging Nigel after her; rounding a corner and ducking into a stoor and hiding between racks. Chad didn't follow and Kuki let out a soft sigh before she stiffened once more, a gun pressed to her back.

"You honestly thought you could lose us that easily?", Cree Lincoln's voice came from behind her; taking a deep breath, she pushed Nigel down and spun to fan kick the older woman. As she fell back, Kuki grabbed Nigel's wrist again and dragged him at a run away.

Needless to say, spying Chad was bad enough, but when Nigel was yanked into a store and ducked behind a rack only to encounter Cree waiting for them, he was beyond confused. True, they had all been arch-enemies when he and Kuki had been in the Kids' Next Door, but those days were behind them, weren't they? He had heard from Abby that Cree had cleaned up her act. She had told him that she was working for some law firm in Idaho… and he couldn't remember a single time in his life that Abby had knowingly lied for her sister…

When Kuki kicked her, Nigel didn't wait for his arm to be jerked before he was running. He almost headed the Asian woman off before she jerked him to the side and through a staff entrance. Down a hallway that looked like the basement of their old elementary school, they twisted down corridors and leaky hallways until Kuki was satisfied that they were lost enough not to be found again so quickly.

In a dead-end, where a boiler was set for management, Nigel fell against the wall and panted. It had been a while since he'd had to run that hard, even with his life in danger. He was used to being the best, but he knew that Cree and Chad had years of experience in the 'adult' world of espionage. His sunglasses-covered eyes turned on the former Numbuh 3 and he stared at her.

"I can see why you hate going to work." He half-joked and sank onto the floor, his knees bending and his arms draping over them.

Kuki gave the best laugh she could through her panting and rested her head against the wall, this was why she wanted out; she had to get out before it got her killed. Granted there was no guarantee that it would solve the problem, but at least it was better than waiting to find out which attack was the one that would end her life.

Taking off her hat, she tied up her hair and pulled off her large t-shirt to reveal a white sun dress tucked into her pants. Untucking it, she removed the pants, leaving on her white sandals and wrapping her clothes up into a ball and stuffing them into the corner and then climbing up and out of one of the windows that led to a back alley behind the airport.

"Come on", she called behind her; knowing that if they didn't hurry they would be tracked down again.

"Chased all over an airport by freak-shows, then it downpours on the way home; what a great day." Nigel's voice was flat as he walked through the door to his apartment, wringing out his jacket as he headed Kuki in. Flicking on a light, he grabbed the doorknob as she stepped over the threshold. "Make yourself home, I guess." He offered her a smile and she mirrored it back, though it wasn't quite as strong. His answering machine was, once again, beeping and he sighed at it tiredly as the door was closed behind her. "Want anything to drink? I don't have much, but I do have alcohol." He laughed at his own joke as he headed for the kitchen and she ghosted after him.

"Water is fine." She said and he grinned back at her as he hit the button on the answering machine. It made a scribbling sound as it rewound and then Wallaby's voice came over the speaker, stilling them both.

"You're not home… I guess that's nothing unusual. I just wanted to ask, while you're in town, if you'd heard from Kuki. Just checking in on her, you know. Call me back, Nigel." The beep cut off his voice and Nigel went on mixing himself a drink and handing her a glass of water before he said anything.

"I get that call about once a month." He laughed uncomfortably.

Kuki turned to look out the window, looking slightly more distant than she had a moment ago. So Wally called Nigel once a month to check and see if he'd heard from her? Somehow that bothered her.

Letting down her hair, she turned and headed into the other room.

"Nigel, if you call him back, don't tell him anything about today...don't tell him about me..." then she went into the living where he could hear her take out her gun, uncock it and start to clean it, setting the individual pieces on the coffee table.

She didn't know why it bothered her so much, she'd been the one to choose to leave; she'd been the one to decide that she didn't want the life she had for him. He was a good man, he wanted a family, wanted kids and a house in the suburbs with a dog that ran around the yard. It wasn't that she didn't want that but she'd needed the money that this job offered at the time and now she was stuck.

Why had she called Nigel in the first place? There were so many other allies that she could have called, other people that didn't know her past and would have helped her for a good price. They wouldn't have known Wally and they wouldn't have talked to him. She didn't necessarily love Wally anymore, but she cared enough for him to care for his feelings, what she'd done had hurt him.

Putting down the gun, she stared at it's pieces for a moment before getting up and returning to the kitchen, taking Nigel's half consumed drink from his hand and downing it before pinning him against the counter, setting the glass down behind him and staring up at him. If it wasn't for that drink she wasn't sure she would have been able to kiss him, did she think of him that way? She couldn't answer that, she'd always had a closeness to him that none of the others had, he had her complete trust but that didn't necessarily mean that she was in love with him.

But with the drink she could kiss him and did because she had something to blame the action on. The kiss insured her-thanks to his own sense of morbidly childish morality-that he wouldn't tell Wally that she was here.

The kiss caught Nigel off guard and he had no choice but to let himself be pinned back against the counter by her light body. Had he wanted to push her off, he sure as hell could have, but the action stunned him enough to keep him still. Was he sure that he even wanted to push her away?

She pulled back and he sucked in a breath, his sunglasses-shielded eyes staring straight ahead in a widened manner. It was a minute before he cleared his throat and had gathered himself up enough to continue what he had been about to tell her when she had captured his mouth with her own.

"Wally's married now. He and Fanny hit it off after you…" his voice trailed off for a second and he looked back at the counter, fidgeting a little as she took a step back. "You remember Fanny… Fanny Fulbright. Numbuh 86?" Kuki blinked and nodded, her face contorted in shock as Nigel nodded and scooped up the glass Kuki had taken away from him. Placing it in the sink, he went on. "I guess they're just alike enough to make it work. They've been married for a few years now… Just had a baby too. Cute kid… He's got Fanny's red hair. I think his name's Reginald or something…"

Shrugging at her, he glanced at her mildly, gauging the look on her face. International spy or not, Kuki had never been good at hiding her reactions to surprises… particularly when they involved Wallaby.

Kuki wasn't surprised, actually she was rather happy for Wally but it still worried her, if he was married and had a child, why was he calling Nigel after her? What Nigel had said only firmed her decision not to let Wally know that she was here; it would make things far too complicated, when they already were so.

"Nigel-" he turned to look at her, the stare was impersonal due to his sunglasses and she reached to remove them. He didn't stop her and he looked far less stark without them in her opinion. Setting them on the counter she looked back up at him, "I don't want this to get messy, I want to get this all over with and behind us as soon as possible so that maybe you can get back to your life and I can have something of a normal one, alright?"

She was telling herself this, not him, she was telling herself not to get too close, not to get involved; if she got involved this would end just like every time she'd seen one of her colleagues start to get close to someone. She; Nigel or both of them would end up dead.

Nigel knew she was right. Kuki was usually right nowadays, but that didn't stop his throat from getting painfully dry when she reached forward and pulled off his sunglasses. Nor did it cease the tingle he felt when her hand brushed his cheek in an absent manner as she explained to him how she didn't want things to become 'messy'. He knew the feeling, but just the fact that Kuki had called him of all people made it 'messy', because it made it personal, rather than impersonal. They had history together and they shared ties to others that she would not have had with some hired assassin.

Sighing and turning around, he reached for a bottle of aspirin and pretended that he had a headache from everything that had happened so far that day. When he had downed 2 pills dry, he turned around without even thinking about whether or not he should have taken them on a stomach with nothing in it but a bit of alcohol.

"I don't work that way." He said flatly and stepped around her to hang up his phone and stop the beeping that the answering machine was making. "You could have called anyone else, Kuki, but you didn't. You called me and you made it messy already, so wherever this goes from here, there isn't going to be any easy way. It's not going to be a quick and painless way of getting you out of this, Kuki. It's like open heart surgery with a patient with an enlarged heart and Hemophilia." Yes, the example was drastic, but then so was the situation they were in.

Kuki said nothing to rebut him, why should she have, he was right and she knew it.


End file.
